The Fiddler

[Jirai]

"That," Jirai said, still fiddling with her crossbow, "Is a really irritating noise." And that went both for the monster's shrieking and Waldemar's stupid singing. Ugh. It hurt her ears. So she lifted the crossbow, taking aim at the creature, trusting that Suede would be quick enough to get out of the way. Elliot Brown had better move too, not that Jirai cared at all about him. "Did I mention that I hate music?"

She pulled the trigger.

[Glenn]

In Elliot Brown's young life there were very few things more disappointing than the effect Phlynn's talon had upon her. It had just seemed like a little piece of dark wonder and magic and it had gone right through her. Galacia's hadn't let him down, of course. She never let down her boy. Except well... it was much more dramatic with Endymion and Treadwell. Maybe it's because this was the Fiddler's true form already.

He was about to discard the newer weapon for a tried and true dagger of Solena's when he saw the crossbow. "Oh. No." He wasn't one to run away usually, but this wasn't a usual situation. They were in a cave. He knew a thing or two about how fire reacted in a small space. Elliot was turning and running towards the mouth of the cave.

[Waldemar]

The children sing, a feeble choir of faltering voices, but it's enough; enough for them to focus on rather than the shrieks and sounds of battle from within the cave, rather than the fiddle tune that still seeks to lure them, to entice them. Enough to keep them distracted while Waldemar works.

The circle meets its end, an unbroken ring in the forest litter, and the miller makes a second hobbling lap, augmenting the scratched line with angular sigils at the cardinal points, marks that leave fleeting afterimages as they are drawn; a ward inscribed with hidden names, calling on powers greater than his own for protection from malign forces. The children cling to one another, some singing, others sobbing or weeping, and he knows that his time is short, that his efforts will be in vain.

I have my protection, Brown. More than a lost boy with a wicked knife can provide.

Fumbling at his collar, from beneath his shirt he draws a pendant on a silken cord, a coin-sized disc of unglazed pottery, a mesh of curves and angles scratched into the clay before firing. His protection, his safeguard against dark forces, and for a span of heartbeats he hesitates, staring back over his shoulder to the cave, fearful of the horrors it contains. Not merely the child-eater, but those who fought it - dangerous, capricious, murderous and mad.

This charm and the name it bears could protect him, would protect him, would allow him to escape from this debacle, this shambolic mess in which he no longer has a stake. He could go, vanish almost as easily as the madman, and leave Brown and his friends to their fate. The children could take their chances, perhaps the monster would be defeated before it might devour more of them.

His mistake, of course, is in turning back to the terrified huddle crouched wretchedly around the rowan tree, holding hands because he'd bullied them into it, singing as best they can because he'd cowed them into tear-streaked obedience. For a moment he looks old, haggard beyond his years, and heaves a despairing sigh, lending his tone what little comfort he can muster.

"Have faith in the One True God; His angel will keep you from harm."

With a sharp gesture the old man snaps the amulet free of his neck, holding it before him in a white-knuckled fist as his lips move soundlessly; a moment of trembling effort is followed by a brittle crunch, and as the miller casts the fragments to the ground he speaks a Name that rings like a cathedral bell.

- a great rushing of countless beating wings -

- a pressure, a presence that drives the children back against the rowan trunk -

A figure stands before him, beautiful and terrible, its sword a tongue of flame; its feet upon the circle and at once every point of its circumference; a single being yet in each instant guarding every direction, gaze like the noon sun, a whirling wheel of blazing eyes, ever-vigilant, ever-watchful, fiery blades flickering back and forth between every point of the compass.

"Spare them!"

Waldemar crouches, kneels, gaze averted, arms lifted to shield his eyes; at his plea the figure is gone, its glory veiled for all that its fearsome presence remains. It has its task, its charge, and the miller is left trembling and defenceless outside the circle.

[Dulcie]

Cold steel bolts hit the creature as it tried to retreat, Jirai's aim holding true. The beast howled and raged as the piercing holes in it's strange body continued to ooze and leak what it had fed upon. Still such wounds could be healed if only there was another child to consume.

The creature reached for the fiddle to try to call another, only to find it snatched away by one of those who had come to save the children. For an instant true fear lingered in the eyes of the creature and it's horrible maw seemed to try to pull together as if it could somehow form words.

The first string snapped and the creature screetched the most frightening unworldly screech, and there clear as if they had pulled a sword against her there was a gaping wound sliced across the middle of the beast, torn open worse than Treadwell's belly had been. The blood and bones of the children that had been eaten began to pour from the mortal wound as the creature continued to screetch and howl.

[Suede]

He landed in a tumble and rolled back up with the fiddle in hand, his hitting a wall of the cavern. The tailor did make certain that it all seemed rather smooth, and of course that hit was more of an intentional lean into the stone as he brought one foot up against the wall. Did he notice the relationship between cutting the strings and the creatures new injury? It was hard to say, he may have simply been agreeing with Jirai's assessment of the cacophony of sound they were being beaten with, but whichever it was now that he had the fiddle he wasn't going to stop there.

He grabbed the instrument by both ends and considered for a moment using it as a bribe against the monster, but then he shrugged and slammed it down across his raised knee. "Fiddles are insults to real violins anyways. True music to tug the heart, you'd like it better, Qu'essan." He didn't even seem to notice her use of the crossbow. Ice wasn't the most interesting effect.

[Jirai]

"Shut up, Roschen," She grumbled. He was right - that wasn't the most interesting effect the weapon could offer, but that was the nature of chance. Sometimes, you got boring instead of fire. "Or shut that thing up, at least. It's leaking children all over the place." Speaking of which...

The dark elf stalked past the mortally wounded monster, past the former councilor. Out of the cave, looking for something in particular. It wasn't long until she seemed to find what she was looking for - Jirai stalked towards the group of children behind Waldemar, the man ignored. "Elliot Brown." She spoke to the rogue even as she tried to reach out and grab one particular child - but found herself thrust violently back several feet. Instead of continuing on with what she had been about to say to the young thief, the diminutive woman let out a string of curses, looking around in confusion.

[Glenn]

Elliot Brown hadn't thought past the thought of escape. He had to get out of that cave before the fire came. Then fire didn't come but he was still fairly glad he had gotten out. The kids were before him basically proving every crazy theory he had about Waldemar and for once, in the thick of all of this, he thought about grasping his onyx pendant and calling out to the dream woman who he hadn't seen in far too long. It was a bit late for all of it though, a bit late for everything. He was acutely aware now how he had let his emotions get the better of him. Now there were priorities.

Cat. And Jirai moving closer to the kid. Or at least that was Elliot's worry. When she recoiled, he took the advantage, trying to snatch the urchin out of Waldemar's arcane grasp and get away. Still, he had to say SOMETHING. "I think Catch ran away with your kid and Cherny. I think he got them to safety but it all happened pretty quickly." This to Jirai, and it'd be the last thing he would say as he tried to break through the circle towards Cat, with every intent to heft the little pickpocket up upon his shoulders. The homicidal drowess had been repelled utterly. The teenaged rogue made it through but it was one of the more unpleasant experiences in his life. For a young man who had a very different path just a few years ago, it was a harsh reminder of what others thought of him: religion, society, his peers. He could feel eyes down upon him. Theirs? No, it was something else but magnified to a monumental degree. Still, he walked forward towards his charge.

"I'm proud of who I am. No one will make me think otherwise. I'm getting Cat and we're getting out of here!" Step after step took him closer.

[Waldemar]

Marek Waldemar kneels a few feet outside the circle, clutching his walking-stick for support; drained, near-exhausted, he can only watch as the dark elf approaches the circle, reaches for a child - and is rebuffed. For a moment the air flickers with the impression of a figure, arm lifted, hand outstretched in warning and denial. The miller grins through his weariness, gritting his teeth into a grimace as he levers himself to his feet, leaning heavily on his stick but standing once more.

Horrific shrieking echoes from the cave, hopefully the monster's death-throes; no less than it deserved. The children are safe, as safe as he can make them, and from that at least he can take some satisfaction.

"Beyond your reach." The drow's discomfiture is almost comical, and this perhaps lends him more confidence than is entirely warranted. "They're not yours. Try again, and--"

Damn the boy!

Elliot Brown crosses the circle because he is permitted to do so - albeit grudgingly, and not without a deeply uncomfortable evaluation before the sense of resistance dissolves like mist.

Inside the circle is quiet, subdued - the child-eater's screams are muffled as if by distance, and at the edge of hearing is a sound as of countless beating wings. Huddling close to the tree, hands tightly clasped with one another, a few of the children still stumble their way through a chapel hymn, fumbling for words and frequently abandoning all pretext of tune. The rest stare glassily, or squeeze their eyes shut tight, or regard the older boy with fear-dulled eyes.

Outside the circle, Waldemar stares in alarm, staggering a pace or two closer to the perimeter, angling to place some distance between himself and Jirai for all that his attention is on the resolute rogue.

"Proud be damned, Brown, you don't think at all! Your friend's safest here. At least -" A sidelong glance for the dark elf, and back over his shoulder towards the cave where her associate is likely responsible for those howls of torment. "- at least wait until help arrives. Better yet, run and get help. You've fast legs." He attempts to alternately command and cajole, but there's an undertone of fear, of near-desperation for the boy to listen just this once.

"She can't touch them, she won't be allowed - not her, not the other one." He'd seen Jirai reaching, intent on the same urchin that now has Elliot's focus. "You take that child out of the circle, I can offer nothing. I've done everything I can. You'd wager your friend's safety on your own pride, boy?"

[Jirai]

This had been too much. By now the urchin, who normally would have been bouncing around with all sorts of things to say, was huddled in amongst the other children, blue eyes wide in gore-spattered face. The delicate waif flinched away as the drow came nearer, but it was not until the young rogue appeared that the child became animated.

"Elliot!" The urchin cried, reaching out to cling to the older boy has he forced himself through the invisible barrier that had repulsed the dark elf, Waldemar's words flowing over the child's head unheard. "Elliot, it were eatin' ev'ryone!"

[Rance]

...In God our faith a stalwart shield,
Stout ward against all earthly fright...

The song whispered over the too-roo-lee! of the fiddlesong -- was it a fiddlesong, had it even been a song at all, not a living thing, rattlebones in his ears? He had been among the children that the others had been forced to carry. His black blood was a seeping oil, a tattoo on the ground, a wretched curse that withered all the grasses it touched. The blades curled, went brown at their edges, hanging their heads as if they too had something to be sad about.

The the vineboy who, in his limbless, maddened cheer, prattled nonsense: "He th-...throws the children, he tosses, don't you see, he throws them one by one into the mouth of...of Caeverlisk, of the mountain-beast. I f-...feel its breath--"

A stolen memory.

A young girl, a girl from Pertley, she knew medicines and she called him little Phlynn, little Phlynn, she cared for a man who lived in the caves of Caeverlisk's mouth, they breathed in the acid-air and they made their potions, and when he died a Wish dripped from his fingers like a little glass bauble-tear and she forgot it, she forgot it, she forgot it, she forgot, forgot, forgot--

"He will throw you in. It w-...will eat you; it will eat your flesh and c-...crush your bones with its earthrock teeth! S-...Sing the man's song, sing his song," as if even in his egregiously-wounded state, the boy was a mind-blanked servitor to the miller's family sigil.

An ancient memory.

Well before great black-spike hammers and an honest knight's fire-iron, long precedent to a piss-rum mouth and the moss on his shoulders, aeons before he dove to the rotten heart of SIlver Lake and tore the nails from his boy-fingers as he scrambled through water-rocks--

so many names, so many memories, locked away in the Bad Stew, a Bad Stew brain, a Bad Stew smell--

What remained of his other claw-fingered hand lashed out, swiped up from the ground as Cat rushed by. Trying to hold the urchin's ankle, the boy missing an arm and a leg pleaded with almost lewd clarity:

"Roschen throws children t-...to their death; you will be next, you will be next!"

The dismembered boything let out a shriek, a cry, as if Cat's disobedience would feed them all to the fate of the Fiddler's gullet.

[Dulcie]

The creatures eyes widened as the man moved with the fiddle. He may or may not have figured out the connection between the creature and her instrument, but in those few moments before he smashed it she began to scream.

The fiddle snapped across Suede's knee and the wood cracked and splintered apart from the point of impact. The creatures screams were ripped apart as the black mass exploded from it's center, spewing the digested blood and viscera of the children across the cavern. With each splinter of wood that came apart from the fiddle another rupture ripped through the beast until there was nothing left on the ground but a puddle of slimey black flesh and the reamins of the poor children that she had eaten.

[Suede]

Suede had no anticipated that reaction, but it shouldn't surprise him that some artists just couldn't take any criticism. The cacophony of screams and showering gore were a far more interesting display, if nothing else. He did wish he'd worn clothing he cared less about when it proceeded to coat him in a chunky layer of viscera, sludge, and blood. He stood there for a moment staring where the monster had been and doing nothing but blinking before he shrugged and tossed aside the fiddle.

The best part was he saw no one else in the cavern to see the did done. He could say whatever he wanted had happened, no one could refute the claim. He was now officially a great hero, and he strolled out of the cavern onto the scene the others had created looking like a thing spawned from the fiddler from the train of bloody steps he left behind to the bits of flesh stuck in his hair.

The first thing he'd be doing after he found his son would be to take a bath. He stopped halfway between Waldemar's magic and the cave entrance, weight shifting to one leg, and crossed his arms. "I feel as though people always fail to appreciate effective use of poisons." No one saw him crack the fiddle, of course, so he was deciding how it died.

[Glenn]

Words. The words of what? A hedge wizard? A hedge priest? What the hell was Marek Waldemar? He was a stuffed up old bastard who was full of himself and full of his beliefs and full of shit. That's what he was. "Marek," a moment of seriousness. Jirai could turn on the mill-owner at any moment so it was best to make this quick. "Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for coming. It would have been hard to save them on my own," but he didn't say he couldn't do it, not that.

It would be nice if that's where it ended, if Elliot would have sat down in the circle, accepting its protection, or even ran on as Waldemar asked (ordered?). Jirai was out there. Jirai was angry. It was tempting. It really was. Sometimes, Elliot was good with temptation. So, of course, instead he walked towards Cat, his confidence less bombastic but just as intense. "Cat is my charge though. Cat is my responsibility, ok? You've done everything you can. I appreciate it, even if I think you might march these kids off to the mill anyway, but you probably won't. You listened to me. You came. I get that. I appreciate it. I'll even read a damn book if you send a title on, right?" He spoke as if it was all nothing, as if he wasn't covered in gore, with tattered clothes, already feeling the bruising from his fall back at the cave.

"But when it comes down to it, I'll wager everything I have and everything everyone else has on one thing alone, and that's me. Cat doesn't want this." A nod to the circle, to the other children, even as he leaned in to whisper to the urchin. It was just a few seconds before he was hefting the child up over his shoulder. "And neither do I. In Myrken Wood, Marek, either you dare or you're already worse than dead. I live way more than you can even imagine. We'll send back help. Maybe we'll even draw her away before she can shoot the crossbow at all of you." With a smile was somewhere between wistful and honestly dashing, he winked at the old man and left the circle at the point he had forced his way in, orphan on his shoulders, beginning their fevered run back towards town.

[Jirai]

That Elliot made it through whatever invisible barrier was surrounding the children while she had been repulsed was irritating, surely, but he had given her the information she had been looking for in the process. Still, she shot a look at him, laden with promise. Another time. Then the dark elf was turning towards the arriving tailor, his gore-covered appearance earning a disgusted look from the slender female.

"We're done here." And without pause she turned, heading away from the small group. There was another child to be found.

~*~

Phlynn was, to be entirely frank, nearly as terrifying as the fiddler had been. No arm, no leg... talons. Grabbing at Cat, who fairly leaped at Elliot to avoid the grasp with a strangled shriek. Roschen might throw children to their deaths, but Elliot would never. Elliot was the only one here the urchin could trust, and small arms wrapped around the older boy as he lifted the orphan and started back towards town.

[Waldemar]

The miller nods as Elliot offers his thanks, acknowledging that gesture at least; what follows, though, is less welcome, and his weary features crease into a deeper frown of disapproval. The boy has made his choice, misguided as it may be, and Waldemar can only pull together what remains of his composure, even as the howling from the cave reaches a ghastly crescendo. He waits, gaze flicking between the youth, the child he claims as his charge, and the lingering drow. At last the shrieks of torment fade into a wet gurgle, and the miller shakes his head.

"You have no idea what I can imagine, Brown. Do not presume." A caution, perhaps, but his voice is dull, tired. Tired from his struggle with the creature in the cave; tired from the desperate effort of seeing the children safe; tired of Elliot Brown and his insolence, his ignorance. Even before he's finished his speech the older man waves a hand at the swarming words that buzz like flies.

"Do what you must." The boy has made his choice, and it can only be hoped that he does not have cause to regret it. Waldemar, for his part, has turned his attention to the children who remain. For the most part they seem willing to stay inside the circle, though there is a movement towards the opposite side of the tree from the drow woman.

One figure in particular earns a closer scrutiny than the rest, having apparently lost entire limbs to the child-eater's jaws, and the miller limps a half-step closer - the child will surely bleed to death if not tended, especially given how vigorously he thrashes and cries out.

A hasty step back in the moment after, however, as he notes the black sludge that oozes thickly in place of blood, the putrescent hue of the torn flesh and splintered bone. He cannot tell what the maimed thing is, not from that alone, but he can guess what it is not. And yet the entity watching over the children has allowed it to remain; any move to harm the sentinel's charges would be met with blazing retribution, but the boy-thing is tolerated.

No time for further speculation, however, as the dark elf's companion emerges from the cavern, drenched in filth and gore; the miller stands, waits, head bowed, leaning heavily on his walking stick; his lips move near-soundlessly for a time before his hand lifts to touch shaking fingertips to his chest. The dark elf's words have him looking up again, though, suspicion in his eyes; a trick? a feint? He cannot be sure, and until he is sure he cannot leave. So he stands, silent and watchful, to be sure that the drow and her swain depart for true.